Why Professional Makeup Artists Say the Latest Contouring Trend Is a Bad Idea

Too. Many. Colors.

Haven't mastered the whole contouring thing yet? Us either, but put those tutorials on hold (kind of) in favor of this color-correcting meets contouring mashup that's totally crazy but also impossible to tear your eyes away from. YouTube beauty vloggers have put their own spin on the extreme contouring trend by adding, with a very heavy hand, bright shades of purple, green, yellow, and red into the mix before blending them together to create a better base for foundation, highlighter, and all of those other fun steps in your makeup routine.

Vloggers Tiana and Nicol created their exaggerated versions, mixing up a unique rainbow of stripes, dots, and zig-zags using the NYX Cosmetics Color Correcting Concealer. Then there are makeup girls like Nao, who are just plain showing off with their superior makeup skills, adding fun little color-correcting hearts in various colors and sizes that get blended together for a flawless finish – kind of seems like a lot of work to just mess it all up moments later.

Not an entirely new concept, color-correcting is a pro secret for evening out the skin tone by using colored concealers to counteract any discoloration – they just utilize the trick in a much subtler way. Makeup artist Allan Avendaño, who is behind the always-flawless faces of celebs like Zendaya, Sarah Hyland, and Olivia Holt says to save the color-correcting for spot treating. "Spot treating is the key," he told us. "I always do a little color correcting on every client — reduce the redness under the eyes, brighten the forehead, take away redness from the sides of the nose — but I do these things gradually in order to keep the skin looking fresh and radiant."

If you can't tell from the extreme color-correcting clips, green shades are used to cover up redness and blemishes, the yellow and pinky-red tones hide dark circles and spots, and the pretty lavender concealer evens out yellow tones. But while the color-correcting method is worth knowing to help you out on days when you haven't gotten enough sleep or are battling breakouts, you can rest easy knowing this extreme method isn't necessary to learn. "I understand if someone has severe discoloration and wants to fix it, but I don't think I would go as far as to paint an entire face with color-correctors," Allan said. "Color-correcting once and then applying the concealer on top does the trick."